Category: Past Events

Speaker

Pil Ho Kim is an assistant professor of Korean at the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, the Ohio State University. A sociologist by training, he has been studying and teaching a wide range of topics related to modern Korea, including popular music, cinema, literature, and urban regeneration/gentrification. He is currently working on a monograph tentatively entitled, Gangnam: Global/Polarization of South Korea’s Dreamland, which casts a new light on the global rise of South Korean economy and popular culture by focusing on its geographic symbol, Gangnam. He has published research articles in positions: east asia cultures critique, Journal of Japanese and Asian Cinema, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Korea Observer, and Acta Koreana, among others.

Author

Dr. June Park is an East Asia Voices Initiative (EAVI) Fellow of the East Asia National Resource Center at the Elliot School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. She specializes in U.S. foreign economic policymaking on export-oriented countries of Northeast Asia – China, Japan and South Korea. She studies trade, energy, and tech conflicts with a broader range of regional focuses on the U.S., East Asia, Europe and the Middle East and intensive policy-oriented research on the two Koreas. She studies why countries fight and how, using what including why countries have different policy outcomes by analyzing governance structures – domestic institutions, leaderships, and bureaucracies that shape the policy formation process.

Recently, Dr. June Park was awarded the Fung Global Fellowship (Early-Career Scholar Track) at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University for the 2021-2022 academic year her my research proposal, ‘Governing a Pandemic with Data on the Contactless Path to AI.’

Discussant

Celeste Arrington is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at GW. She specializes in comparative politics, with a regional focus on the Koreas and Japan. Her research and teaching focus on law and social movements, the media, lawyers, policy processes, historical justice, North Korean human rights, and qualitative methods. She is also interested in the international relations and security of Northeast Asia and transnational activism. She is the author of Accidental Activists: Victim Movements and Governmental Accountability in Japan and South Korea (2016) and has published in Comparative Political Studies, Law & Society Review, Journal of East Asian Studies, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, and the Washington Post, among others. She received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and an A.B. from Princeton University. She is currently writing a book that analyzes the role of lawyers and legal activism in Japanese and Korean policies related to persons with disabilities and tobacco control.

Moderator

Yonho Kim is Associate Research Professor of Practice and Associate Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korean Phone Money: Airtime Transfers as a Precursor to Mobile Payment System (2020), North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Speaker

Hongjian Wang

Assistant Professor of Chinese and Asian Studies, Purdue University

Author

Hongjian Wang is an Assistant Professor in Chinese at Purdue University. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 2012 from the University of California, Riverside, and her B.A. in English Language and Literature in 2006 from Nanjing University (China). Prior to her position at Purdue, she was an Assistant Professor of Chinese at the University of Arkansas.

Dr. Wang’s research interests cover modern and contemporary Chinese literature, film, theater and cultural history. She has published an article on the photographic representation of modern Chinese masculinity in an anthology on the popular pictorial Liangyou in the Republican era. In addition to her manuscript on Decadence in twentieth-century Chinese literature, she is also working on three new projects, namely, Chinese independent documentary films, contemporary Chinese experimental theater, and the satirical skits in China’s national gala on TV during the Spring Festival.

Author

Dr. Liang Luo is a professor of Chinese studies, folklore & mythology, and gender and women’s Studies at the University of Kentucky. Currently she teaches modern and classical Chinese language, modern and comptemporary chinese literature, comparative East Asian literature, gender politics in Chinese literature and culture, and Chinese film and popular culture. Early in her career, she was awarded a “Certificate of Distinction in Teaching” at Harvard University for her contribution to undergraduate teaching.

She has written many works including The Avant-garde and the Popular in Modern China: Tian Han and the Intersection of Performance and Politics, The Global White Snake and most recently Profound Propaganda: The International Avant-Garde and Modern China an exploration of the relationship between the international avant-garde and modern China.

Her research has conducted interdisciplinary, multilingual and multi-site research in Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Furukawa, Chongqing, Hong Kong, Singapore, Stockholm, Nijmegen, Leipzig, Heidelberg, Leiden, Taiwan, and Seoul in the broadly-defined fields of modern Chinese literature and culture, modern Japanese studies, performance studies, modernist studies, comparative literature, and cultural studies. 

Speakers

Gregg A. Brazinsky is Professor of History and International Affairs and Deputy Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. His research seeks to understand the diverse and multi-faceted interactions among East Asian states and between Asia and the United States. He is the author of Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy (University of North Carolina Press, 2007) and Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). He served as Interim Director of the GW Institute for Korean Studies during the Spring 2017 semester. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Shihoko Goto is the Deputy Director for Geoeonomics and Senior Northeast Asia Associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Asia Program. She specializes in trade relations and economic issues across Asia, and is also focused on developments in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. She is also a contributing editor to The Globalist, and a fellow of the Mansfield Foundation/Japan Foundation U.S.-Japan Network for the Future for 2014 to 2016. Prior to joining the Wilson Center, she spent over ten years as a journalist writing about the international political economy with an emphasis on Asian markets. As a correspondent for Dow Jones News Service and United Press International based in Tokyo and Washington, she has reported extensively on policies impacting the global financial system as well as international trade. She currently provides analysis for a number of media organizations. She was also formerly a donor country relations officer at the World Bank. She received the Freeman Foundation’s Jefferson journalism fellowship at the East-West Center and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s journalism fellowship for the Salzburg Global Seminar. She is fluent in Japanese and French. She received an M.A. in international political theory from the Graduate School of Political Science, Waseda University, Japan, and a B.A. in Modern History, from Trinity College, University of Oxford, UK.

Seong-ho Sheen is Professor of International Security, and Director of International Security Center at Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS), Seoul National University (SNU). Previously, he was a visiting fellow at the East-West Center DC, a CNAPS fellow at the Brookings Institution, an assistant research professor at Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) and a research fellow at Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis (IFPA). He has taught at University of Massachusetts Boston. In addition, he advised various government organizations including ROK National Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Unification, and the ROK National Assembly. His area of interest includes International Security, US Foreign Policy, Northeast Asian Politics and the Korean Peninsula.  Professor Sheen received Ph.D. and M.A. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and B.A. from Seoul National University.

Moderator

Celeste Arrington is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at GW. She specializes in comparative politics, with a regional focus on the Koreas and Japan. Her research and teaching focus on law and social movements, the media, lawyers, policy processes, historical justice, North Korean human rights, and qualitative methods. She is also interested in the international relations and security of Northeast Asia and transnational activism. She is the author of Accidental Activists: Victim Movements and Governmental Accountability in Japan and South Korea (2016) and has published in Comparative Political Studies, Law & Society Review, Journal of East Asian Studies, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, and the Washington Post, among others. She received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and an A.B. from Princeton University. She is currently writing a book that analyzes the role of lawyers and legal activism in Japanese and Korean policies related to persons with disabilities and tobacco control.

Author

Alexa Alice Joubin is Professor of English, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Cultures at George Washington University, where she is the founding co-director of the Digital Humanities Institute.  At the Elliott School, she is affiliated with the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for Korean Studies.

In her outreach work, Dr. Joubin has testified before congress in a congressional briefing on the humanities and globalization, and been interviewed by BBC, The Economist, the Washington Post and other outlets. 

At MIT, she is a co-founder and a co-director of the open access Global Shakespeare’s digital performance archive, which promotes cross-cultural understanding.

Moderator

Richard J. Haddock is the Program Associate for the East Asia National Resource Center (NRC), which is supported by a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education. He is also a member of the UC Berkeley U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group, where he is conducting a research project on the current state and future prospects of Taiwan Studies in the United States. Mr. Haddock is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University, focusing on digital democracy and e-governance development in the Asia-Pacific. He holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the Elliott School.

Sponsors

GW Confucius Institute
GW Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures
GW East Asia National Resource Center
GW Institute for Korean Studies
GW International Services Office
GW Multicultural Student Services Center
GW Organization of Asian Studies
GW Sigur Center for Asian Studies

Featured Partner

San Diego Southern Sea Dragon and Lion Dance Association

Instructions for Zoom Lecture Access

Join the Zoom webinar on Thursday, February 11th, at 12:00 p.m. (EST):
https://zoom.us/j/92153456341 (Meeting ID: 921 5345 6341)

Please RSVP at your earliest convenience, since registration is limited and spots are not guaranteed otherwise.

We kindly ask attendees to please mute their audio upon meeting entry for best Zoom quality. Thank you for your cooperation.

For assistance with Zoom access, please contact confucius@gwu.edu

Author

Thomas Lockley is Associate Professor at Nihon University College of Law in Tokyo, where he teaches courses related to the international and multicultural history of Japan and East Asia. He’s published research papers, textbooks and articles, including the first in the world regarding the life of Yasuke. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Moderator

Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures and Director of the Institute for Korean Studies at GW. She also currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Korean Studies. She is a specialist in gender, law, and emotions in Korean history. Her broader research interests include gender and sexuality, crime and justice, forensic medicine, literary representations of the law, history of emotions, vernacular, and gender writing. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2015), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled Sexual Desire, Crime, and Gendered Subjects: A History of Adultery Law in Korea. She received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.

Speaker

Marc Knapper, a member of the Senior Foreign Service of the U.S. Department of State, has served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Korea and Japan since August 2018.  Prior to assuming this position, Marc was in Seoul as Chargé d’Affaires from 2017 to 2018 and Deputy Chief of Mission from 2015 to 2016.  Earlier assignments include Director for India Affairs, Director for Japanese Affairs, and multiple postings in Tokyo, Seoul, Hanoi, and Baghdad. Marc has twice worked in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, once in 1997 as the State Department representative to the Spent Fuel Team at the Yongbyon nuclear facility, and again in 2000 as part of the advance team for then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s visit to Pyongyang. Marc is the recipient of a number of awards from the U.S. Department of State, including the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, the nation’s highest diplomatic honor. Marc has also received the Linguist of the Year award and three Superior Honor Awards. He is a summa cum laude graduate from Princeton University, and also studied at the University of Tokyo, Middlebury College’s intensive Japanese program, the Army War College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Seminar XXI course. Mr. Knapper speaks Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese.

Moderator

Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures and Director of the Institute for Korean Studies at GW. She also currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Korean Studies. She is a specialist in gender, law, and emotions in Korean history. Her broader research interests include gender and sexuality, crime and justice, forensic medicine, literary representations of the law, history of emotions, vernacular, and gender writing. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2015), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled Sexual Desire, Crime, and Gendered Subjects: A History of Adultery Law in Korea. She received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.